During a fast, every bit of vitality must be economized; therefore the passive treatments are to be preferred to active exercise, although a certain amount of exercise (especially walking) daily in the open air accompanied by deep breathing should not be neglected. While fasting, intestinal evacuation usually ceases, especially where there is a natural tendency to sluggishness of the bowels. Injections [salt and baking soda enemas are best] are therefore in order and during prolonged fasts may be taken every few days. By prolonged fasts we understand fasts that last from one to four weeks, short fasts being those of one, two or three days' duration. Moderate drinking is beneficial during a fast as well as at other times; but excessive consumption of water, the so-called flushing of the system, is very injurious. Under ordinary conditions from five to eight glasses of water a day are probably sufficient; the quantity consumed must be regulated by the desire of the patient. Those who are fasting should mix their drinking water with the juice of acid fruits, preferably lemon, orange or grapefruit. These juices act as eliminators and are fine natural antiseptics. Never use distilled water, whether during a fast or at any other time. Deprived of its own mineral constituents, distilled water leeches the mineral elements and organic salts out of the tissues of the body and thereby intensifies dysemic [blood deterioration] conditions. While fasting, the right mental attitude is all-important. Unless you can do it with perfect equanimity, without fear or misgiving, do not fast at all. Destructive mental conditions may more than offset the beneficial effects of the fast. To recapitulate: Never undertake a prolonged fast unless you have been properly prepared by natural diet and treatment, and never without the guidance of a competent Nature Cure doctor. Fasting in Chronic Diseases At all times some of our patients can be found fasting; but they do not begin until the right physiological and psychological moment has arrived, until the fast is indicated. When the organism, or rather the individual cell, is ready to begin the work of elimination, then assimilation should cease for the time being, because it interferes with the excretory processes going on in the system. To fast before the system is ready for it, means mineral salts starvation and defective elimination. Given a vigorous, positive constitution, encumbered with too much flesh and with a tendency to chronic constipation, rheumatism, gout, apoplexy and other diseases due to food poisoning, a fast may be indicated from the beginning. But it is different with persons of the weak, negative type. Ordinarily, the organism resembles a huge sponge, which absorbs the elements of nutrition from the digestive tract. During a fast the process is reversed, the sponge is being squeezed and gives off the impurities contained in it.